I know I’ve said this before, but it seems to come up so often that I can’t help but repeat it. Everything is vibration. Everything. And if it’ not vibration, it’s waves, be they energy waves, sound waves, or, as I like to describe them waves of pure woo. Add quantum mechanics to the mix, and you have the ingredients a veritable orgy of woo. (And if you want a real orgy, they might even have your back covered there, too.) I had thought that this fascination with vibration among purveyors of woo was a relatively recent phenomenon.

I was apparently wrong.

Coming to me, from deep in the heart of cyberspace, is a lesson in the history of vibration as a source of…sacred science, as we’re told that “it’s a musical universe”:

Wow. That’s some seriously potent woo. In fact, it’s so potent that there are claimed to be over 10,000 pages of information on this website. Obviously deconstructing all of that would be a massive undertaking and result in a post of epic length even beyond the usual standards of this blog (but not by that much). In any case, I think I’ll stick to the best tidbits that I can find. I don’t guarantee that they’re the best tidbits there. (After all, there are 10,000 pages.) If you want to delve deeper, feel free. Just don’t be surprised if your head feels like it’s vibrating after you’re done. The website combines some basic physics with some serious woo in such a way that it’s not always obvious where the science ends and the woo begins. Well, not actually. However, the two are interspersed. Moreover some of this woo, even if it is over 100 years old, looks almost as though it came from the 1960s. Just check out this image:

I’m not sure what it means, but it’s sure psychedelic. Too bad it’s in black and white. So voluminous is this woo, that I struggled to figure out just what Sympathetic Vibratory Physics is, and what it can supposedly do for me. Whatever it is, I know it must be good if its boosters appeal to a “revelation” of “forgotten” knowledge of what electricity is:

“The Ancients” were on the right road, as is now demonstrated in Sympathetic Vibratory machinery. They knew more of the causal world, of the unvarying laws of nature, than all the men of science of our time know, or ever will know until they pursue their researches on the path opened to them in Sympathetic Physics.

In this system, force and energy are classified as opposites, working in antagonism to each other: Force as “a positive power which initiates aggregative motion, and resists separative motion, in three postules, of ponderable matter in the etheric medium;” Energy as “a negative power, which initiates separative motion, or disintegration, and resists aggregative motion, in three postules of ponderable matter, also of the etheric medium.”

The path of research, to attain the knowledge sought by savants, is laid in the conditions connected with association and dissociation, electric under the latter, magnetic under the former. On the line intimated, every researcher will find it in his power to answer Pilate’s question, “What is Truth?” for we possess over “The Ancients,” to whom these truths were revealed, a tremendous advantage in being able to verify them by all the means which inventive genius places at command in our day. When once men of science are convinced that nature’s sympathetic laws, as taught in Keely’s system of physics, are the laws which control and govern all her operations, they will bend themselves with unflagging energy to this only true line of research, instead of seeking for “manifestations” of unknown powers in the human organism, through “mediums ” abnormally affected. These manifestations are of such a character as to prove, if they prove anything, that cases of “obsession” did not cease with the days of the Apostles, on whom the power was conferred of “casting out devils,” or evil spirits. “As a man is so his ghost is.” Spiritualism has done a great work in counteracting some of the effects of the reign of skepticism inaugurated by materialistic science. Spiritism is quite another thing. Like counterfeit coin, which represents sterling gold, it counterfeits spiritualism.

Yes! Now we’re getting somewhere! I think. It’s hard to say. The woo-speak is so concentrated that even my jaded mind is having trouble figuring it out. Apparently Keely figured out an entirely new system of physics that he used to develop the hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacuo engine, some sort of motor that he thought would supersede the steam engine. But Keely’s woo goes so much deeper than that. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of woo is such that even I had a hard time handling it. Fortunately, there is a FAQ to help me out:

A careful and in-depth study of the arithmetic of music will reveal a great deal of the foundation “math” of the Keely legacy now called Sympathetic Vibratory Physics. All forces are vibratory and therefore the principles that govern music govern them as well.

This study into the scientific basis of music will be the beginning of “getting down to the nitty-gritty.”

The second part of the question has to do with the EFFECTS of sound and vibration on “things” and processes. SVP holds that Mind (Will, Love & Spirituality) is the initiatory cause of all phenomena and it was this force Keely worked to harness. These phenomena fall into several areas of research. These being: acoustics, heat, light, etc. or the various categorizations of vibrations in their actions and reactions on, with and through “things.” A great deal of SVP is scattered throughout several fields of science. This makes it difficult for the ordinarily trained person to grasp all the points required to develop a working knowledge. For this work it is far better to have a general knowledge in many fields rather than an in depth knowledge in one field – in fact it is essential.

My goodness. It’s an utter symphony of woo in forty movements! It’s so dense and so amazing that I fear exposing you to more than a couple of examples of these laws. For example, here’s the Law of Force:

“Energy manifests itself in three forms: Creative, the vibrating aggregate; Transmissive, being the propagation of isochronous waves through the media in which it is immersed; Attractive, being its action upon other aggregates capable of vibrating in unisons or harmony.”

What does it mean? Who the hell knows? There’s also the Law of Transformation of Forces:

“All forces are different forms of Universal Energy unlike in their period- frequency, merging into each other by imperceptible increments; each form representing the compass of 21 octaves. Each form or pitch may be transformed into an equivalent quantity of another pitch above or below it in the scale of 105 octaves. The transformation can occur only through its static effect, developing vibrations of harmonic pitches above or below their fundamental vibration, or developing with juxtaposed aggregates, resultant and difference, or third order, as the case may be.”

And don’t forget my favorite, the Law of Chemical Substitution:

“(too complex for brief statement)”

Funny, but I thought a “law” in science was supposed to be a brief and relatively simple statement of a physical principle, like the first law of thermodynamics. In any case, I was really having a hard time figuring out what this device could actually do for me. So I decided to go for the device claimed to be based on Keely’s work, the Atlin Dynasphere:

A dynasphere is a fractal both of the earth and of atoms each of which rotate continuously without end. They use neither chemical or other expensive fuels and are completely nonpolluting. Is an atom or a rotating planet a perpetual motion machine? Of course not.

Keely harnessed Mind Force in his devices and machines:

“Will force is a latent, spiritual element, neither gaseous nor otherwise. Its evolution is brought into action under certain spiritual conditions not now understood by science. Its protoplastic element is actually luminous, in respect to its latent flow from the cerebral domain; but all the flow that has ever been registered from the time of the birth of every volume of thought &emdash; all that ever existed, or will ever exist in the future &emdash; would not produce a substance of matter the size of a molecule.” Keely

Mind or Mind Force is evident in all our thought processes. Whereas conventional power sources pollute and are detrimental to human health and general well-being these dynaspheres appear to promote health and healing which has been an unexpected, surprising and serendipidous discovery. After many years of experience around many hundreds if not thousands of people it can not be doubted there is a powerful and coherent energy field around this device. Just exactly what this field is and what are its specific characteristics is being studied. It is theorized these healing (harmonizing) effects may be the result of the harmonic or coherent acoustic field initiated within the device’s Neutral Center and extended in a coherent field around the device. This field extends for some distance and appears to vary according to the “quality” of people (their thought and attitude) in its immediate environment. Meditation and playfulness seem to enhance the field. If the field is pure chi, bioenergy, life-force and/or love energy this makes sense. Most people can easily feel this field while some can see it. The theory seems to imply people in this field begin to entrain their mental and body energetic systems to the harmonic vibrations of this field. Our mental and body energy systems are usually “out-of-whack” due to stress, disease, etc. As our mental and body systems entrain they begin to function as a whole and in a more natural and optimum manner. Naturally occuring energy patterns re-emerge and a sense of well-being is experienced.

Of course, that explains it all.

What’s best about all this is that Delta Spectrum Research has an active research program. Indeed, the “scientists” there are “scientifically studying” vibratory rotation, life force (qi) measuring instrumentation, and Solar/Stirling/Brown’s Gas Domestic Power System.

I’m mildly disappointed you didn’t mention the original grand master of woo, Pythagoras. When you said “musical universe,” I was sure Mr Harmony of the Spheres would be there, too.
He’s also the oldest example of that fine tradition of geniuses who are at the cutting edge of one intellectual endeavor (math, geometry) being full of concentrated horsecrap when it comes to everything else. Fred Hoyle, anyone?

Moreover some of this woo, even if it is over 100 years old, looks almost as though it came from the 1960s. Just check out this image:

Actually, the graphic style of that packet of woo concentrate looks more turn-of-the-20th-century to 1920s to me. As for the content, some kinds of woo are truly timeless, but the mention of “the granite rock may becom gold, or radium, at the will of men” does place it firmly before the Radium Girls and Radithor incidents took away radium’s gee-whiz aura.

As for Keely:

After Keely’s death, journalists and engineers went to his laboratory to investigate his machines; Keely’s supporters had already appropriated most of them, though they failed to make them work. Engineer Alexander Scott and Clarence Moore, son of Clara Bloomfield-Moore, examined the building. Inside the walls they found mechanical belts linked to a silent water motor two floors below the laboratory. In the basement there was a three-ton sphere of compressed air that ran the machines through hidden air pressure tubes.

FSM whup me with His Noodly Appendage, if finding those doesn’t conclusively prove fraud then there have never been any frauds in all history. It’s astonishing that there could still be True Believers in Keely’s claims after 109 years.

Coin: While ± is plus-minus, familiar to anyone who’s ever played with ascii or looked at a schematic with tolerances, ∓ represents subminus-negaplus, a concept only truly understandable once one has begun to grasp the implications of the 105 octave aggregations and admixtures thereof, and also a really bitchin’ band name.

Michrowski of the Planetary Association for Clean Energy (http://www.svpvril.com/svpweb9.html and scroll down for where your contact for the results of the tests on Americum241) has just cropped up in a WorldNetDaily article attacking CFL’s.

AS antiquated Tory points out above, ideas like this go back over 2 millenia. They were still around, in various forms in the medieval period and the rennaisance, and I am not suprised to see them turn up again and again in this sort of nitrogenous fertiliser.